Storylines

30 years ago, the Stanley Cup playoffs ignited a rumour that has been messing with Jane Macdougall’s life ever since. It was June 14, 1994, and the Vancouver Canucks had made it all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the New York Rangers. The Canucks were magic on ice, so when they lost by just one goal, fans expected the team to come back blazing the next year. Instead,1995 was a total letdown. The team seemed to have lost its chemistry and when a popular defenceman was abruptly traded, stories started swirling. The rumour became that the defenceman was having an affair with the goalie’s wife, destroying team morale and leaving the franchise flailing. For nearly 30 years, Jane Macdougall (the goalie’s now ex-wife) has been dealing with the fallout of that rumour. She says she’s harangued about it constantly from all directions—strangers at parties, kids at her son’s school, even her accountant—they all have something to say about her “affair”. But not only is the rumour false, it’s not even possible. On this week’s Storylines, Acey Rowe tracks the Canucks rumour from locker rooms to chat rooms to NHL legends to figure out how a story like this snowballs, how it survived for 30 years, what really happened to the Canucks way back when, and what it is about sports fandom that makes rumours like this so common—because Jane Macdougall is far from alone. Reported and produced by Acey Rowe. Story Editing by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung from the podcast Decoder Ring by Slate Magazine. Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit.

At a union hall in Detroit’s industrial River Rouge neighborhood, workers have come together to vote for a new leader. The event feels festive, with a fire pit, a tent, and even 'walking tacos,' which are taco meat mixed into a bag of Doritos. But there are dark clouds on the horizon for the future of their industry.Many of these workers are employed by the Great Lakes Steel Works, a massive steel mill that provides raw materials for the U.S. automotive industry.These workers have a lot on their minds. The company that runs their plant, U.S. Steel, might merge with the Japanese steel company Nippon Steel. Then there’s the rise of EVs, which will potentially disrupt the U.S. automotive sector. Layoffs have already been happening. Four years ago, the steel mill shut its blast furnace, and more than a 1000 workers lost their jobs.People are worried about their futures, and how they see that future might impact the U.S. election.. Michigan’s 15 electoral college votes are critical for Biden's path if he hopes to get re-elected. Michigan is a swing state, which Biden won in the last election, but Trump took the first time he ran.To understand what’s on these Michigan workers' minds, Pete Mitton traveled to Detroit to better understand the dynamics of the upcoming election and the economic realities of the blue-collar workers there for this documentary 'Detroit Takes the Wheel'.Reported by Pete Mitton. Story Editing by John Chipman. This documentary originally aired on The Sunday Magazine.Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

In January, some New Hampshire voters thought they had gotten a robo call from Joe Biden, telling them to skip voting in the state primary. The robocall voice at the other end of the phone wasn’t Biden at all. In fact it was a deepfake, created by a political consultant working for a longshot democratic challenger to Biden. The audio itself was made by a magician in Texas, using a simple website that created the deepfake using text-to- speech audio using AI. The fake Biden robocall shows how easy it could become to use AI to disrupt an election but that isn't the whole story.In this episode of Storylines, producer Craig Desson takes us around the world to see how election officials, politicians and academics are grappling with how AI might impact our elections as hundreds of millions go to the polls this year. The situation is troubling, but there are also ways AI brings new possibilities to democracies around the world. Reported and Produced by Craig Desson. Story Editing by Joan Webber. Originally aired on Sunday Magazine. Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit 

Claire Hafner at 47, is among the top women boxers in the world. She’s just about ready for retirement but wants to win the Canadian title before hanging up her gloves. However, a question hangs over the timing of when retirement will come. Claire is also among a small group of women athletes who are participating in a landmark study on the effects of trauma in mostly combat sports. Every year she gets tested for signs of head trauma to see if all those hits are leading to a long-term degenerative brain condition, known as CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy.In this documentary we follow Claire to Las Vegas where she’s undergoing a new round of tests, and if they show a sign of decline, she’s going to retire before attempting to win that last Canadian title. At the end of the show we’ll hear another documentary about boxing, but this one with a surprising twist. We’re going to drop you into a chess boxing match in London,UK. You can win by a KO or by checkmate. That documentary was reported by Laura Lynch back in 2011 for Dispatches.Reported and produced by Katie Nicholson. Story Editing by Acey Rowe with help from Liz Hoath.Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

CBC producer Naheed Mustafa, then a freelance writer and broadcaster, landed at the Kabul airport on a blistering hot summer day back in 2008. She’d come to report on how the country had been transformed by the U.S. led war. By that point a lot had changed. In Kabul Afghans felt free to come and go as they pleased, women wore burkas but they also wore jeans, tunics and pretty headscarves. There had been an election too, but at the same time, a violent Taliban resurgence was underway.Mustafa didn’t know it at the time, but that resurgence would continue until the Taliban recaptured the country. It's been 10 years since Canada officially ended its mission in Afghanistan. Now, Mustafa is looking back at the documentaries she made, and listening to the voices of everyday Afghans living through a key moment in their country's history.Reported by Naheed Mustafa. Produced by Julia Pagel. Original Dispatches doc produced by Donna Cressman. Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit 

When Julia Pagel was seven months pregnant, she and her husband faced all the usual new parent decisions: making a birth plan, deciding which stroller to buy and whether to use reusable or disposable diapers. However, there was one choice that was extra tricky for the two of them. What would their child's last name be? Should they just go along with standard practice of giving the baby the father’s last name? The tradition of giving the dad’s name to the child didn’t sit right with Julia, but her husband had come to Canada from Serbia as a 9-year-old, and his last name meant a lot to him. So Julia set out on a mission, to see how others had managed this last name quandary.The documentary was reported by Julia Pagel and story editing by Karen Levine.

On May 1st the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will begin commercial operations. It marks the end of a 12 year saga that included protests, legal challenges and the purchase of the pipeline itself by the federal government. When Ottawa stepped in to buy TMX six years ago, it had an estimated price tag of $7.4 billion dollars. Today the cost has grown to $34 billion dollars. As the polarizing project nears the finish line, CBC producer Allison Dempster visits communities along the pipeline route, from Edson, Alberta to Burnaby, B.C. She meets people who worked on the project, people who campaigned against it and Indigenous leaders who one day hope to own it. In the second half of the show, we join Anna Maria Tremonti on a road trip she took along the route back in 2019. She hears from Western Canadians deeply divided on the pipeline project. As you’ll hear, the expansion is almost complete, but the debate over its legacy is far from over.Reported by Allison Dempster. Produced by Jennifer Chevalier.Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit 

Mary Kajumba needed money to make a better life for her daughter. So, with the help of a placement agency she left her home in Uganda, and went to Iraq where she got a job as a restaurant cleaner. It wasn’t long after she realised she was in trouble. Mary says she found herself working 18 hour days, sharing cramped accommodation with 30 other workers and never getting paid. But then, help came from an unexpected place. Voice memos, from a man in Vancouver who was working for an anti trafficking organisation. This week on Storylines freelance journalist Jazzmin Jiwa brings us Mary’s story. We follow Mary as she tries to break free from the shackles of human trafficking and forced labour with the help of an NGO. Stories like Mary’s can be found across the Middle East, where workers from sub-Saharan Africa are trafficked, transported, threatened and forced to work for little to no wages. They find themselves working as cleaners and domestic servants, after landing jobs through recruitment agencies that don’t ask many questions about working conditions.Reported by Jazzmin Jiwa. Produced by John Chipman. Story Editing by Julia Pagel and Liz Hoath. This documentary was supported by the Pulitzer Center.Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

Over the past near-century, Academy Award categories have come and gone. In the silent film era there was an award for Best Title Writing. You know, the written cards that summarized the “dialogue”? Oscar worthy. This year’s 96th Academy Awards broadcast saw Oscars handed out in a whopping 23 different categories, from the big wins like Best Picture, to awards for behind-the-scenes expertise in costuming and score. But one group of people thinks there should be yet another added to that list: best stunts. Stunt actors are real life action heroes behind the biggest movies, but it’s unlikely we know their names and faces, at least not if they’re doing their jobs right. They risk life and limb to bring films to life. The chariot race in Ben-Hur? The entire Fast and Furious franchise? None of them would be possible without stunt coordinators and performers. On this week's Storylines, Joan Webber tells the story of a decades-long effort to get stunt workers their Oscar due.Produced by Joan Webber. Story editing by Julia Pagel. Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

On October 23rd, 2023 Bob Hallaert, a man with a history of intimate partner violence, shot and killed Angie Sweeney days after she broke up with him. They’d been together for about three years. What happened that day didn’t just shatter the Sweeney family, it shattered Sault Ste Marie. And many believe what happened to Angie could have been stopped. Intimate Partner Violence is at a record high in Canada. On average, a woman is killed by an intimate partner every six days in this country. After a man killed three women in Renfrew County, Ontario in 2015, a month-long inquest made 86 recommendations to end intimate partner violence. The recommendations spanned everything from ways to improve the justice system, the criminal code, early interventions for victims and perpetrators, more and better resources for those in danger, and better police and public education.The first recommendation was to declare IPV an epidemic, which so far the Ontario and Federal governments have refused to do. On this week's Storylines, journalist Katie Nicholson heads to Sault Ste Marie where Angie’s friends, family, and community have come together to grieve, but also to act.    Reported by Katie Nicholson. Produced by Acey Rowe. Story editing by Julia Pagel and Liz Hoath. Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

Public washrooms are few and far between in Canada. When nature calls, it’s often a scramble to find a coffee shop or mall restroom that's accessible. In Montreal this is certainly the case, but it wasn’t always so. The city used to boast a decent network of public washrooms, constructed before the Second World War. Where did they go? And why, to this day, do we have so few public washrooms in Canada? On this week's Storylines, CBC Montreal's Ainslie MacLellan uncovers the answers.This episode is from the CBC Podcast Good Question, Montreal where every week Ainslie MacLellan takes a question about Montreal from a Montrealer, and then does whatever it takes to answer the question. Reported by Ainslie MacLellan. Produced by Sara Dubreuil. Story Editing by Craig DessonStorylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

In 2014, Shams Erfan was pulled off a bus by members of the Taliban who accused him of being a traitor. A bystander intervened, saving his life, but Shams knew he was no longer safe in Afghanistan. This threat set Shams on a treacherous 8-year journey. He hoped to find a safe haven in Indonesia. Instead, he spent years stuck in a refugee prison camp. When he finally reached Canada, Shams vowed to help bring others like himself to safety—and he found the people who could help him do it. On this week's Storylines, Alisa Siegel follows three strangers from vastly different worlds, united in a single mission: to rescue refugees trapped in Indonesia and help them begin new lives. Produced by Alisa Siegel. Story editing by Liz Hoath. Storylines is produced by Acey Rowe. Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit. 

When Russia invaded Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put out a call to foreigners with combat experience to come and help. Paul Hughes, a former marksman and paratrooper with Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, went. Paul has been in Ukraine ever since, where he founded HUGS: Helping Ukraine, Grass Roots Support.Run out of a garage through donations and volunteers, HUGS mostly helps fix army vehicles and distribute food and supplies to Ukrainians. But when Paul got a call asking him to cross Russian lines to rescue a six-year-old Ukrainian who’d been separated from her mother, he knew he had to accept the mission.  On this week’s Storylines, CBC reporter Danny Kerslake, an old army buddy of Paul’s, catches up with his friend to hear the story of how Paul risked his own life to save another’s.Produced by Danny Kerslake. Story editing by John Chipman. Storylines is produced by Acey Rowe.Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit

24 Sussex Drive. That Ottawa address has been the official residence for the prime minister since the 1950s, but Canada’s current one doesn’t live there because the house is in disrepair. Workers have already removed  asbestos, mould and rodents, but it’s estimated it will cost millions more to make the building habitable—and secure. Critics call the languishing home an “embarrassment” to a G7 nation. And so far, no politician has been willing to make the decision to either fix it or tear it down. On this week’s Storylines, Jennifer Chevalier dives into the history of 24 Sussex Drive: from the lumber baron who built it as a pre-confederation wedding present, to the man who fought against its expropriation, to the political families who have called it home, asking how politics are getting in the way of a decision on what should be done about Canada’s most famous heritage home.Produced by Jennifer Chevalier. Story editing and mixing by Acey Rowe. Storylines is part of the CBC Audio Doc Unit.

It’s been 12 years since Widlene has seen her son. She had to leave the little boy in Haiti with family after she was targeted by gang members. The plan was to get out, find somewhere safe, make a home there, and have her son join her. So when she was granted asylum in Canada, Widlene believed her fight would be over. Instead, it was only just beginning. Asylum seekers are supposed to be able to bring their dependent children to Canada once their claim has been approved. But critics say some of the most vulnerable family members are facing the longest delays. This week on Storylines, Craig Desson follows Widlene as she and her lawyer navigate a complicated immigration bureaucracy that’s processing a record number of applications. All while Widlene tries to keep her son safe from a world away. 

You might associate sommeliers (wine experts) with fancy restaurants and snooty attitudes, but Canada’s Best Sommelier is as likely to be found traipsing the backwoods in steel toed boots and a cowboy hat, as in a MICHELIN starred restaurant in a three piece suit. It all depends on what he’s up to: is he harvesting maple syrup at the sugar shack he runs with his family? Or is he representing Canada as he competes for the title of World’s Best Sommelier in Paris? This week on Storylines, Acey Rowe follows Pier-Alexis Souliere as he does both.We’re heading from Pier's home town in rural Quebec where he learned about wine and service at his mother’s knee, to the international capital of wine (Pairs!) where he’s determined to champion Canada on the world stage—and prove himself.But this competition has left him conflicted. Where wine and home were once entwined, Pier’s heart may now be asking him to choose.  

The Great Bear Rainforest on BC’s coast is a spectacular place. Rugged mountains and old growth forests stretch all the way to Alaska. It was here that nearly a decade ago a group of coastal First Nations decided to halt most of the logging in their territories. And in the areas where they did log, they would do it differently. But ten years on the plan hasn’t gone quite as expected… And it’s left the First Nations with a difficult question: can they sustain sustainable logging?

Not long after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Sasha Skochilenko walked into a grocery store in St. Petersburg, Russia. She reached into the pocket of her puffy winter coat, and pulled out a sheet of sticker price tags where she’d printed information she was learning about the war. Information she wasn’t getting from Russian state media. She placed the tags on a few shelves, and left. But these small tags were about to change the trajectory of Sasha's life. On this week's Storylines, Julia Pagel follows the fight for Sasha's freedom, as she faces up to 15 years in Russian prison for what Russia calls spreading "deliberately false information about the Russian army."

For years, thousands of kids with roots in Canada, the U.K., the U.S. and beyond lived under the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate. Some were taken there by their parents. Others were born there. But after the war against the Islamic State was won, many of these children still remain in limbo. They wait in detention camps, run by the group which helped defeat ISIS – the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. On this week's Storylines, four years after the fall of the Islamic State, Poonam Taneja visits one of the camps in northeast Syria where some of the hundreds of children the world doesn't know how to deal with, dream of going home. This is episode 6 of the podcast Bloodlines by CBC Podcasts and BBC Sounds. Bloodlines follows Poonam Taneja’s search for a two-year-old British-Canadian boy who disappeared in the final days of the war against the Islamic State. You can find the series wherever you’re listening to this podcast.

The federal government estimates that on average 27 people a day in this country are diagnosed with brain tumours. Among the most aggressive is Glioblastoma (GBM). According to Brain Cancer Canada, people with GBM have a life expectancy of 15-18 months. So when David Cormican was told that his father’s tumor was the “size of a baseball” the family started looking for something—anything—that would extend Michael’s life. That’s how they joined the thousands of Canadian families who go abroad, paying enormous sums out of pocket, for treatments they can’t get at home. On this week's Storylines, Mykella Van Cooten follows Michael Cormican’s fight to become the first Canadian to get a life-extending brain cancer treatment administered in Canada, even though it’s not yet approved here.